One is so surprised to see the BBC acknowledge in any manner the existence of black conservatives that it seems unreasonable to ask them to do it politely as well. Actually it wasn’t too bad. Around the middle Keane was stricken by Paxmanitis and got a little offensive as he kept interrupting Connerly and denying the listeners what could have been interesting trains of thought. Then he got a grip on himself and asked some interesting questions about the lessons that Connerly drew from being abandoned by his father.
That wasn’t what I came here to talk about. I get distracted so easily. Brian, I had a similar experience when I went to Oxford. I was used to being Miss Clever Clogs, top of the class, star of the show. Suddenly I was surrounded by people at least as clever as I was. On the one hand, a bit of a blow to my ego. On the other – how wonderful to strike this unsuspected lode of people who saw nothing odd about wishing to talk about Olbers’ paradox. Let’s just be glad they don’t make us take an exam to determine our rankings in the suddenly-extended Libertarian pecking order. You might not come a-cropper even if they did.
That wasn’t it either. Oh yes, aeroplanes. My dear spouse and helpmeet directs me to say that yes, the Spitfire did suffer from a low range, but the British never attempted a long range fighter, largely due to Portal’s opposition. (See The Right of the Line by John Terraine.) As to armament, the US never needed cannon because they never needed to knock down bombers. Against single engine fighters, .50 calibre machine guns were enough, but you need something which explodes to knock down a twin-engine bomber…
There’s more. Much more. Do you any idea what it’s like living with this? I sit down to watch a war flick and rest my eyes on the young Robert Mitchum, and what do I get? “That’s never a Panzergnadigefrau Mk XCVIII, nah, it’s a recycled Abrams with a cardboard hat on. (They sold a job lot to the Vatican in 1958 you know.) And they have the nerve to call that a EntschuldigenSieWaffen uniform? Hah! Don’t they have researchers? Couldn’t they employ someone to tell them that the silver fly-buttons didn’t come in until 1944, and late 1944 at that….”
